Skip to main content

EU is Desperate for Extension of Transition. UK Broadcasters silent.

The EU Coronavirus bailout plan will involve 750 billion euros split between 500 bn euros of grants and 250 bn of loans. (See Euractiv).

This huge bailout package is occurring as the UK drastically reduces its EU contributions to the relatively small amount needed to pay pensions etc.  The EU will lose almost a sixth of its income (omitting residual UK contributions).

The EU is hoping that Barnier and the EU negotiating team can pull off a coup and persuade the UK to extend transition for at least two years.  The free money from the UK will subsidise the EU bailout package.  The Remain media in the UK are backing the EU position, seemingly keen that money which should be used for UK bailouts is spent in foreign countries.

The reason that the EU wants the UK contributions is that every £10bn of cash income can be leveraged into £500bn of loans at 2%.  If the British allow the transition to be extended they will remove £500bn from expenditure in the UK and transfer this to foreign bailouts in EU countries.

Barnier has written a letter to all of the opposition parties in all parts of the UK offering a two year transition in the hope that they will attack the UK Government.  This "divide and rule" approach of the EU to UK internal politics is unacceptable.  Had the Russians done the same the UK opposition parties would have been reviled as traitors.  Fortunately for opposition leaders UK broadcasters have covered this up.

The EU bailout package involves increasing the contributions to the EU from member states.  At present member states pay an average of 1.2% of GNI and this will be increased to 2%.

Were the UK to rejoin the EU its contributions might rise from a gross contribution of about £17.4 bn to £29 bn (See House of Commons Library).  It is unlikely that there would be any rebates were the UK to rejoin.  The Brexit bus would have a truthful £557 million a week gross on its side.

According to the Euractiv article the various grants and loans will come with tight conditions to increase EU integration and control in Member States. The EU is a one way street to a single EU State.

31/5/2020

We must not lose sight of the fact that the EU-UK Trade negotiations are in bad faith and have been designed to punish the UK from the outset. It is only by having a clean break that the UK will get good terms in subsequent negotiations.

Comments

Nithya said…
I hope the bailout plan announced by the EU helps to manage the current economic crisis due to the Covid-19 spread. Last week I took part in the open debate session organized by Top IAS coaching centres in Chennai, and we discussed the internal politics of the EU and UK governments. It is high time that the EU and UK join hands together to fight against the current economic crisis.
John said…
Join hands yes, but the UK surrender its government to the EU, no. One does not need the other.

Popular posts from this blog

Practical Idealism by Richard Nicolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi

Coudenhove-Kalergi was a pioneer of European integration. He was the founder and President for 49 years of the Paneuropean Union. His parents were Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat, and Mitsuko Aoyama, the daughter of an oil merchant, antiques-dealer, and huge landowner family in Tokyo. His "Pan-Europa" was published in 1923 and contained a membership form for the Pan-Europa movement. Coudenhove-Kalergi's movement held its first Congress in Vienna in 1926. In 1927 the French Prime Minister, Aristide Briand was elected honorary president.  Personalities attending included: Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and Sigmund Freud. Figures who later became central to founding the EU, such as Konrad Adenauer became members . His basic idea was that democracy was a transitional stage that leads to rule by a new aristocracy that is largely taken from the Jewish "master race" (Kalergi's terminology). His movement was reviled by Hitler and H

The Falklands have always been Argentine - Las Malvinas son Argentinas

"The Falklands have always been Argentine" is taught to every Argentine child as a matter of faith.  What was Argentina during the time when it "always" possessed Las Malvinas?  In this article I will trace the history of Argentina in the context of its physical and political relationship with "Las Malvinas", the Falkland Islands.  The Argentine claim to the Falkland Islands dates from a brief episode in 1831-32 so it is like Canada claiming the USA despite two centuries of separate development. This might sound like ancient history but Argentina has gone to war for this ancient claim so the following article is well worth reading. For a summary of the legal case see: Las Malvinas: The Legal Case Argentina traces its origins to Spanish South America when it was part of the Viceroyalty of the Rio del Plata.  The Falklands lay off the Viceroyalty of Peru, controlled by the Captain General of Chile.  In 1810 the Falklands were far from the geographical b

The Report on Racism

The " Report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities " has just been published.  The Commissioners were nearly all from BAME backgrounds and have produced a robust and fair Report. The Report identified a class divide in which the cycle of advantage maintains a section of the population in wealth and leaves the large bulk of the population in relative poverty.   The wealthy class is largely white British but the poorer class consists of large numbers of white British and other ethnic groups.  This class divide causes a bias in the crude statistics on disadvantage so that majority, poor white British are labelled as "white supremacists" etc. when it is the small wealthy class that actually creates the disparity that causes this analysis. The most striking finding is that different ethnic groups had very different experiences and outcomes.  Educational outcomes demonstrate this at a glance: Red text added for this article Most ethnic groups had better outcome